Outerwear Garments for Use with Child Safety Seats

ABSTRACT

In some embodiments, a hood and outerwear garments with single attachment points for children wearing coats in car safety seats are disclosed. In some embodiments, the outerwear garment is comprised of a winter bonnet having an insulated lining and a single attachment point at the upper anterior portion of a coat. In some embodiments, the single anterior attachment prevents the hood from being inadvertently lodged behind a child—potentially limiting the safety seat&#39;s ability to secure the child. An object of some embodiments is to prevent a hood from interfering with car safety seat restraint systems.

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No.62/660,394, filed on Apr. 20, 2018, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The disclosure relates to outerwear garments. More specifically, itrelates to children's coat hoods and outerwear garments compatible withcar safety seats.

BACKGROUND

Outer garment hoods have been worn for centuries and can be traced backto medieval monks in Europe. In 1885, U.S. Pat. No. 314,660 was one ofthe first inventions to incorporate a hood onto a coat with snap hooksin the collar. Later in the early 1900s, the industry saw theintroduction of a hood attached to a sweatshirt in the United States. In1935, U.S. Pat. No. 2,002,955 was granted to Lipson and disclosed a hoodaffixed to a collared jacket with a zipper. In 1939, U.S. Pat. No.2,160,682 was granted to Silber who disclosed a combination coat andhood for rainwear. In 1945 U.S. Pat. No. 2,370,158 was granted to Israeland teaches of a combination trench coat with a hood. In 1948 U.S. Pat.No. 2,439,382 was granted to De Grala and disclosed a field jacket witha hood folded into a collar. As new fasteners, insulation and textilesemerged in the 1980s; hoods remained an integral part of activeouterwear. While hoods have evolved over the centuries, no hoods werefound in the prior art specifically designed to be compatible with childsafety seats.

SUMMARY

The device herein disclosed and described provides a solution to theshortcomings in the prior art through the disclosure of outerweargarments and a hood for children's coats that are compatible with carsafety seats. In some embodiments a method for safely and comfortablyplacing a child in a car seat while wearing a hooded jacket/coat isdisclosed. Conventional coats have hoods that are usually affixed atseveral points along a back collar of a coat. When a parent secures achild wearing a hooded coat into a car safety seat, the hood can fallbehind the child's head. As the parent adjusts the restraints of thesafety seat, the hood can cause a child to be pushed forward and mayimpair the parent's ability to cinch restraints properly and potentiallyplacing the child at risk. In some embodiments, a hood and outerweargarment is disclosed that does not interfere with a car safety seat. Insome embodiments, an anterior attachment point allows a hood that is notin use to hang in front of a child preventing it from being lodgedbetween the child's back and the safety seat.

In some embodiments, a child's comfort while wearing a coat in a safetyseat is enhanced. In some instances, an overheated child in a car seatcan push a conventional hood off their head causing it to lodge behindtheir neck causing discomfort against the restraints inadvertently. Insome disclosed embodiments an unused hood is allowed to hang down infront of a child and out of the way, subsequently maintaining a child'scomfort.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a partof the specification, illustrate some, but not the only or exclusive,examples of embodiments and/or features.

FIG. 1 shows a front view of an embodiment of a hood on a coat.

FIG. 2 shows a rear view of an embodiment of a hood on a coat.

FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of an embodiment of a hood being used ona coat in a safety seat.

FIG. 4 shows a child outerwear garment according to the prior art and asfurther disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,498,007.

FIG. 5 shows a front view of an alternative embodiment of a hood on achild's outwear garment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Upon reading this disclosure, those skilled in the art will recognizevarious means for carrying out these intended features of variousembodiments disclosed herein. As such, it is to be understood that othermethods, applications and systems adapted to the task may be configuredto carry out these features and are therefore considered to be withinthe scope and intent of this disclosure. With respect to the abovedescription, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment indetail, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited in itsapplication to the details of construction and to the arrangement of thecomponents in the following description or illustrated in the drawings.The embodiments herein described are capable of other variations and ofbeing practiced and carried out in various ways which will be obvious tothose skilled in the art. Also, it is to be understood that thephraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting. The objectsfeatures, and advantages of the disclosed embodiments, as well as theadvantages thereof over existing prior art, which will become apparentfrom the description to follow, are accomplished by the improvementsdescribed in this specification and hereinafter described in thefollowing detailed description, but should not be considered as placinglimitations thereon.

Aspects of the disclosed embodiments shall be more readily understoodwhen considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and thefollowing detailed description, neither of which should be consideredlimiting.

In this description, the directional prepositions of up, upwardly, down,downwardly, front, back, top, upper, bottom, lower, left, right andother such terms refer to the device as it is oriented and appears inthe drawings and are used for convenience only; they are not intended tobe limiting or to imply that the device has to be used or positioned inany particular orientation. For purposes of this description a hoodconsists of a left and right side, a bonnet portion, and a collarportion (near the wearers chin).

FIG. 1 shows a front view of an embodiment of a hood (1) on a coat (3).FIG. 1 also shows one side of the hoods collar (Left hand side hoodcollar attachment) attached (2) to the coat (3) on the upper chest areaof the coat, this left hood collar attachment can be through anyattachment means, including but not limited to sewn on to the coat, asnap on, Velcro, or zipped, or buttoned. The right hand collar side ofthe hood has an attachment means (5) and can attach to the coat when thehood is being worn, so that both the right and left side of the collarof the hood are secure to the coat.

FIG. 2 shows a rear view of an embodiment of the hood (1) up and beingworn on the coat (3). When the hood is in this configuration the backcollar of the hood attaches to the back neck area of the coat throughattachment means such as described herein.

In some embodiments, the left collar hood attachment can require agreater force to detach the left side of the hood from the coat relativeto the amount of force needed to detach the right side of the hood fromthe coat, or vice versa. For example, the left side hood collarattachment can be sewn-on to the coat while the right side hood collarattachment attaches magnetically to the coat, or vice versa. In otherembodiments, the left side hood collar attachment uses a button/loopattachment mechanism while the right side hood collar attachmentutilizes magnets, or vice versa.

FIG. 3 shows a hood and outerwear garment being used in a car safetyseat (4). The coat (3) is being worn by a child while the hood isremoved from the back of the child's head (6) and the right hand collarattachment (5) is attached to the front of the coat location of the lefthand collar attachment (2). This allows the hood (1) to hang in front ofthe child and not to be lodged between the child and the safety seat(4). It should be noted that, in some embodiments, both the right andleft hand sides of the collar attachment can be identical and the hoodcould be attached to the front of the coat on either side.

Optionally, the coat or outwear garment may comprise one or more frontpanels, as more fully described and set forth in U.S. Pat. No.9,498,007, which is incorporated by reference as though fully set forthherein. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,498,007, and further illustratedin FIG. 4, a child's outerwear garment 100 can comprise a, detachablefront panel 110 that is attached to rear portion 120 of garment 100 byfasteners 130. Fasteners 130 may be any fastener known in the artincluding, but not limited to, clasps, hooks, snaps, buttons, zippers,Velcro™, or any combination thereof.

It is particularly important that front panel 110 be detachable fromrear portion 120 high up on the shoulders 140 of garment 100, in orderthat the advantages of the invention may be fully realized. It isremoval of front panel 110 all the way to shoulders 140 that allows acar seat harness to be properly and safely secured over a child wearinggarment 100, as this removal prevents the puffing and bunching at theshoulder that prevents the car seat harness from being properly andsafely used with conventional outwear garments at the front panel(s) areselectively fastenable to one or more shoulder region(s) of theremaining body of the coat to facilitate a child being properlyrestrained in a car seat.

The rear portion 120 of garment 110 is shown as having optional sleeves121. When garment 100 is used in the winter sleeves 121 are useful forwarmth, but may be dispensed with in the summer. Garment 100 as shown inFIG. 4 further has an optional collar 150 and center fastener 160.Optional center fastener 160 may be any type of fastener known in theart including, but not limited to, clasps, hooks, snaps, buttons,zippers, Velcro™, or any combination thereof. Use or non-use of optionalcollar 150 and center fastener 160 is a decision based on comfort,style, and utility of the outerwear garment.

FIG. 5 shows an alternative embodiment of a hood 1 on an outerweargarment 100 comprising a panel 110. Fasteners 2 and 5 are used to fastenthe left hand and right hand side of the hood 1 to the left hand andright hand sides of the panel 110, respectively.

In some embodiments, one side of the panel 110 is sewn on to the outweargarment 100, whereas the other side of the panel 110 is selectivelydetachable using fasteners such as buttons, Velcro, magnets, etc. Insuch embodiments, one of the fasteners (2 or 5) will attach to the sideof the panel 110 that is sewn on to the outerwear garment 100, whereasthe other of the fasteners (2 or 5) will attach to the side of the panel110 that is selectively detachable from the outwear garment 100. In sucha circumstance, the fastener (2 or 5) that attaches to the sewn on sideof the panel 110 can be configured to require a smaller force fordetachment from the panel 110, relative to the amount of force needed todetach the other fastener (2 or 5) from the panel 110. Advantageously,this attachment configuration would allow the entire assembly of thehood 1 and panel 110 to be rolled and tucked away on one side of thechild while the child is utilizing the safety seat. Additionally, inthis particular embodiment, because the hood 1 is sewn on to thedetachable side of the panel 110, in order to properly restrain thechild in the child safety seat by opening the detachable side of thepanel 110 and moving the panel 110 away from the child's chest area,this particular attachment configuration requires the hood 1 to beremoved in order for the hood/panel assembly to clear the child's head.As a result, this particular configuration serves as a failsafe toensure that the hood is removed prior to restraining the child in thecar seat.

A hood for use with an outwear garment is thus described. The inventionis defined by the claims and their full scope of equivalents.

I claim:
 1. An outer garment to be worn by a child to facilitate theirsafety in an automobile safety seat, the garment comprising: a hood forbeing worn on the child's head, the hood comprising a fastener forengaging with a mating fastener located on the front chest area of acoat; wherein at least a portion of the rear area of the hood isconfigured to selectively engage with at least a portion of the rearcollar area of the coat.
 2. The outer garment of claim 1 wherein thefastener comprises a loop and the mating fastener comprises a button. 3.The outer garment of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the reararea of the hood is configured to selectively disengage with the atleast a portion of the rear collar of the coat when the fastener isselectively engaged with the mating fastener.
 4. The outer garment ofclaim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the rear area of the hood isconfigured to clear the uppermost area of the child's head when thefastener is selectively engaged with the mating fastener.
 5. The outergarment of claim 1, wherein the fastener is configured to apply a forcesufficient to cause the at least a portion of the rear area of the hoodto clear the uppermost area of the child's head when the fastener isselectively engaged with the mating fastener.
 6. The outer garment ofclaim 1, wherein the coat further comprises a rear shoulder fastenerconfigured to selectively engage with a mating rear shoulder fastenerdisposed on the rear shoulder area of the coat, wherein the coat isconfigured to allow the child to be properly secured in the car seatwhile the coat is being worn and the rear shoulder fastener and themating rear shoulder fastener are selectively disengaged.
 7. The outergarment of claim 1, wherein the fastener is configured to apply a forcesufficient to cause the at least a portion of the rear area of the hoodto clear the uppermost area of the child's head when the fastener isselectively engaged with the mating fastener and the child is properlysecured in the car seat while the coat is being worn and the rearshoulder fastener and the mating rear shoulder fastener are selectivelydisengaged.
 8. The outer garment of claim 1, wherein the fastener andthe mating fastener are selected from the group consisting of Velcro,magnets, buttons, and loops.
 9. The outer garment of claim 1, whereinthe fastener comprises a unitary structure.
 10. An outer garment to beworn by a child to facilitate their safety in an automobile safety seat,the garment comprising: a body member comprising a longitudinal fastenerdisposed along a longitudinal edge of the body member, a shoulderfastener disposed along a shoulder region of the body member, and afirst hood fastener; a front panel comprising a mating longitudinalfastener disposed along a longitudinal edge of the front panel and amating shoulder fastener disposed along a shoulder region of the frontpanel; a hood coupled to the front panel and comprising a mating firsthood fastener configured to selectively fasten to the first hoodfastener; wherein the longitudinal fastener is configured to selectivelyfasten to the mating longitudinal fastener and the shoulder fastener isconfigured to selectively fasten to the mating shoulder fastener;wherein the front panel is configured to allow the longitudinal edge andshoulder region of the front panel to be separated from the longitudinaledge and shoulder region of the body when the longitudinal fastener,mating longitudinal fastener, shoulder fastener, and mating shoulderfastener are fully disengaged.
 11. The outer garment of claim 1, whereinthe front panel further comprises a second hood fastener and the hoodfurther comprises a mating second hood fastener.
 12. The outer garmentof claim 11, wherein the hood and the front panel are separable.
 13. Theouter garment of claim 1, wherein the front panel is configured totransfer to the hood force sufficient to disengage the first hoodfastener from the mating first hood fastener when the longitudinalfastener, mating longitudinal fastener, shoulder fastener, and matingshoulder fastener are fully disengaged.
 14. The outer garment of claim1, wherein the front panel is configured to transfer to the hood forcesufficient to displaced the hood away from the head region of a childwearing the hood, when the longitudinal fastener, mating longitudinalfastener, shoulder fastener, and mating shoulder fastener are fullydisengaged.
 15. The outer garment of claim 1, wherein the front panel isconfigured to transfer to the hood force sufficient to displace the hoodaway from the shoulder region of a child wearing the hood, when thelongitudinal fastener, mating longitudinal fastener, shoulder fastener,and mating shoulder fastener are fully disengaged.
 16. The outer garmentof claim 1, wherein the longitudinal fastener is selected from a groupconsisting of Velcro, magnets, buttons, and loops.
 17. The outer garmentof claim 1, wherein the first hood fastener comprises a plurality offastening elements.
 18. The outer garment of claim 1 wherein thelongitudinal edge of the body is located on a second front panel. 19.The outer garment of claim 1, wherein the outer garment permits a childto be properly restrained in an automobile safety seat without fullyseparating the hood from the outer garment.
 20. A coat and hoodconfiguration comprising: a coat with a removable hood having an lefthand side of the hood collar attached to the front chest of the coatthrough attachment means and a right side of the hood collar attached tothe left font of the chest of the coat through attachment means.
 21. Thecoat and hood configuration of claim 21 further comprising: both hoodcollar attachments attaching to the corresponding sides of the coat'sfront chest area and the back of the hood collar being attached to theback neck area of the coat when the hood is configured in the wearingposition.
 22. The coat and hood configuration of claim 21 furthercomprising: the right hand hood collar and the left hand hood colorbeing both attached on the right hand side of the coats chest area. 23.A method allowing a child to be safely and comfortably restrained in acar safety seat comprising: attaching through attaching means the lefthand collar of a hood to the front chest area of a coat, removing theright hand attachment of hoods collar, removing the hood attachment frombehind the child's head and neck area, attaching through attaching meansthe right hand collar of a hood to the let hand collar's attachmentlocation on the front of the coat, draping the hood down the front ofthe coat.
 24. The method of claim 23 further comprising; attaching anddraping the hood in on the front right side of the coat.